


Impact

by SpiritedandLoyal



Category: And The World Will Turn To Ash - Fandom, Pokemon GO
Genre: And the World Will Turn to Ash (Pokemon Fan Comic), Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Animal Death, Bad Ending, Bad ending Au, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Characters on Team Mystic, Creampuff the Eevee, Cyanea (Team Mystic), Explosions, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Hypothermia, I'm Sorry, Pat (Team Mystic), Pat belongs to a friend, Pokemon Death, Regret, Roseanne Oak (Team Valor), Team Mystic (Pokemon), Team Valor (Pokemon), seriously this has been titled 'Bad Ending AU' for over a year now, this is going to hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:35:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24855442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritedandLoyal/pseuds/SpiritedandLoyal
Summary: Impact (noun): the striking of one thing against another; forceful contact; collision: alternatively, an influence or effect.Cyan is an up-and-coming trainer of Team Mystic, but nowhere near their best. Still, it doesn't matter if you're Mystic Two or Mystic Two Hundred: when the Titans clash, you take cover. When Opal City crumbles around you, you run. That was the last order she received.Cyan and her loyal team of Pokemon searched the rubble for survivors, instead. She won't be the only one to pay the price for that decision.(This is the 'Bad Ending AU' for my characters. You have been warned.)
Relationships: Cyanea & Pat, Cyanea/Roseanne Oak
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Impact

**Author's Note:**

> I worked on this in bits and pieces over the course of nearly a year, during which I lost four loved ones: two furry friends and two people. I did a lot of crying over this. More or less a ventfic, in a kind of 'how many cathartic tears can I wring out of myself' way.
> 
> So if you cry, just know that I cried more in the long run.
> 
> Mentioned once in this chapter is a character named Pat: they are an OC belonging to [ Roseeater. ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eki_fuuten/pseuds/Roseeater)
> 
> Technically takes place in [ Surfacage's ](https://www.surfacage.net/) [ _And The World Will Turn To Ash_ ](https://www.surfacage.net/ash) AU, but it mostly serves as backdrop for this relentless suffering.

Cyan breathed in. Shuddering. Out. Painful. 

She only had another flight of stairs until she made it to the roof. 

She thinks she could make it, just barely. She had to. She _had_ to, even if it killed her. 

Her knees quake as she pulls herself up the first step. Only her death grip on the guardrail keeps her from stumbling. Her left arm curls protectively inwards, cradling a twisted bundle of cream and brown fur that lays still and silent. Creampuff seems tiny and fragile in her arms, barely a couple pounds beneath the thick fluff. 

Cyan forced herself to focus on climbing up the second step. 

She was beyond exhausted- she was beyond her limit. Without a doubt. If she'd been a character in an action movie, this would have been the moment when someone gently but firmly pushed her to lay down and said _'Save your strength, you'll need it. Help is coming.'_

She heaved herself up another step. That made three.

There was no one here to look after her. She hadn’t seen another soul in hours, in fact. Opal had been getting steadily quieter and quieter in the past few weeks, as travelers and tourists stopped arriving. Their places in airports and on ships were taken by those leaving the city to avoid the storms. Several dangerous weather systems had been circling the city, around and around like a couple of Fighting types in a ring. Cafés and shopping malls became eerily quiet, like the whole city had been holding its breath. 

At least it meant less people in the city when all hell had broken loose. 

Another step. Her wrist ached with the force she had to use to keep herself upright and moving. Her whole arm shook, and something twinged painfully in her elbow. 

There was no help coming. 

She stopped to pant. Her throat was raw and aching, even though it had been hours since she'd been shouting orders- as raw as or maybe even worse the last time she’d had a bad flu. It hurt every time she moved her neck or breathed or gasped in pain. She was doing that a lot. Which was strange, because normally pain was on the outside. But her outside felt kind of shaky and fuzzy, like a Joltik's static. All her pain was on the inside. 

Cyan grit her teeth and pulled herself up with more force than strictly necessary, propelling herself up several steps with some last dregs of adrenaline she hadn't known she'd had. Her sudden progress cost her; she fell to her knees, gasping and choking on bile. She was halfway up this last flight of stairs now. She could make it.

Maybe. 

She couldn't fathom finding the strength left in her to stand on her feet again. So she crawled up one step and then the next, on the one hand and two knees, her precious bundle held as close as she could in spite of the pain. 

Her phone clattered out of her pocket and she was forced to make a grab for it. Thankfully, it didn't fall to the bottom of the stairs, and it didn't seem to break. If it did, Cyan might have given up right then and there. There was no point in reaching the open air of the roof if she had no phone to get service with. 

Three steps left. 

She coughs into her shoulder, seeing a spray of blood soak into the Mystic blue. _Oh. That's new._ She hopes that it's just blood caught in her throat from when she vomited blood earlier. At least that would mean her body was only horribly fucked up in one spot, not two. She knows Pokemon biology better than her own, but she's still pretty sure her lungs are more important than her stomach. 

Not as though she has a choice. She has no say in the matter. She just has her final goal.

Two steps left. 

She doesn't know what caused the explosion they'd been caught in. A stray spark of electricity catching the oxygen tanks? One of the roaring fires finding the natural gas lines Mystic used for their laboratories? Melting snow finding its way into the shattered remains of their chemistry shelves and setting off a reaction? A true and proper bomb, planted there for some unknown reason? 

Cyan doesn't know. She doesn't even think half her theories are logically plausible. Some Mystic she is. _What happened to having a cool head under pressure?_

What she does know is this: her exterior cuts and bruises are superficial. Some of them have even stopped bleeding. Her scraped knees from the stairs and aching arms and torn fingernail and pounding head aren't important. They're just in the way. They won't kill her. 

Her internal bleeding will. 

One step left, and then she has to open the door. 

Cyan is no medical expert, but there's a resigned tone in her final struggle. There is no point in saving her energy, not one shred of it. There is just no point. Even when she makes it to the roof, there will be no salvation for her. She just needs to complete her final goal. She's heard countless tales of people and Pokémon who pushed their bodies beyond their physical limits- hysterical strength and raw elemental energy doing the unthinkable, verging on the impossible. Reading those kinds of stories had always left her feeling powerful and awed, marveling at the sheer potential that her and her Pokémon and so many others held inside. 

She does not feel powerful now. She feels nothing but misery, pain, and desperate determination. And only one of those is moving her. 

There are no more steps. She has cleared the final flight of stairs. Now she needs to open the door to the roof. 

She stares up at it from her knees, briefly hugging Creampuff to her chest with both arms. A cough becomes a sob in her throat. 

She wishes she could ask her Pokémon to help her. But they had fallen, one by one, fainting or stricken with grievous injuries only stabilized by the stasis of their Pokéballs. She cannot call on them now. They will need near-immediate medical attention the moment they exit the safety of their capsules. The duty to get them to safety falls to her. She owes them so much- her life, all her love, unlimited appreciation and a million acts of affection each. They have been her lifeline, physically and spiritually. She hates to leave them behind. She hates that she will not get to tell them goodbye. 

Trembling, she reaches up and manages to grab onto the door handle. It's a bar handle, not a knob, and she thanks physics for this fact as she heaved herself to her feet one final time. She has to lean her whole weight against it to get it unstuck, but it budges loose and she staggers through to stand under the open sky. 

It's dark as night, although she doesn't know the hour. The sky is heavy and low with black storm clouds, pressing down to meet with the smoke rising from the ruined remains of Opal City. Burning fires brighten the cityscape like morbidly beautiful torches, casting dancing light across shattered glass and sheets of dark, slick ice. Hail and freezing rain pour down from the sky like the intent to kill, but the many raging pillars of inferno dotting the horizon appear entirely unaffected. As she watches, lightning illuminates the sky with blinding light, striking in half a dozen places at once. 

It's the apocalypse, and it's strangely beautiful. 

Another flash of lightning shows her three silhouettes in the dark night sky- it crackles off of what could only be Zapdos, striking a larger, darker shape that Cyan can't place. Articuno's familiar form swoops past, the iconic tail perfectly matching the very design of the jacket Cyan wore. As the light fades from the sky, an airborne gout of flame draws her attention to the brightly blazing outline of Moltres joining the fray. 

Although she's miles away from them, she swears she can hear Articuno's piercing cry carried on the wind. 

It's the apocalypse, the end of days like she has never known, not even imagined well enough that she could sufficiently fear its rapid approach. 

It's the apocalypse, right here in Opal City, and Cyan is alone. 

Rose is all the way in Unova. 

It's probably barely sunrise there. Maybe not even that. Rose won't even be awake, will not see the news until she's had her morning coffee and bagel and fed all her Pokémon and-

Maybe it's better. To have a few more minutes of peace before she learns that a part of her world has been devastated.

The wind howls around Cyan as she slides down to rest her back against the half-closed door. It barely shields her from the flinging hail and half-formed snow, soaking her clothes through and clumping in her hair. She curls closer around Creampuff, as though she can protect him somehow from the elements. The effort needed by her abdominal muscles to pull her knees up to her chest makes her gut feel like it's replaced organs with broken glass and acid.

Her hands are already weak and trembling, made worse by the cold. The wet snow makes her hands slick as she finds her phone. The sudden glare of the screen sends spikes of hot pain through her skull, and the numbers and letters swim before her eyes. 

Oh. _Oh._ She's got a concussion, doesn't she?

Half blind from migraine and freezing tears clinging to her lashes, she hits the hotkey to send out an emergency signal from her location. She thinks her phone says she has service, but she can't tell. Still, she swipes to her girlfriend’s number and forces her fingers to type. 

Cyan: _I'm sorry_

Cyan: _I'm so sorry_

Cyan: _I'm not going to make it_

Cyan: _I lovr you_

Cyan: _You're not jsut my girfriend_

Cyan: _You wre ym ribal_

Cyan: _My best frienddf_

Cyan: _My familyt_

Cyan: _You did so much for mr_

Cyan: _You were my everthinf_

Cyan: _I loce you_

Cyan: _I' sordy_

Cyan: _I love you_

**Warning. Low Battery. Plug in to recharge.**

She finally allows the phone to slide out of her hands. They're so cold. She's shaking all over. She's scared. If nobody finds her, her Pokémon might not make it. If the nearby cell towers are destroyed, her messages might not go through. 

There’s nothing Cyan can do about that now. She’s completely spent. Sleeping and never waking up again doesn’t even sound appealing anymore, just the dull inevitability of her situation.

She's so cold that it makes her breathing laboured, which makes her torso ache and burn even worse. She can't feel her legs much anymore. Her hands are freezing and numb. She buries her hands deep into Creampuff's fur, soft and downy beneath the wet guard hairs, seeking the warmth and comfort he has always brought her.

She does not find it. Creampuff has been cold and still for a long time now. She knew this, held the ache of the cold truth in her heart as she struggled up those stairs, but only now do tears of grief finally flood back into her eyes. 

They were… they’d been scouting for any other survivors in the wreckage of one of Team Mystic's specialty laboratory research buildings. Creampuff, so small and nimble, had been darting around the damage to check difficult-to-access locations, while Cyan called out for someone to hear, pausing to listen.

It had been during one of those pauses to listen that she saw Creampuff lift his head in the air and take a few cautionary sniffs. She'd heard him whine, his fur ruffling and tail tucked between his legs, as he turned and dashed back towards her. 

She doesn't know how he noticed. It's a miracle he got as far as he did- his speed was always his best battle stat. 

It wasn't far enough. 

The blast had ripped through everything in the area, including them. They'd both been flung hard. She'd been slammed into the base of the stairwell. Creampuff had hit the sloped, low-hanging ceiling above her and crumpled, dropping directly down onto her chest. 

His physical defense had always been his worst battle stat.

She'd still been stunned from the blast, ears ringing, vision fuzzy, shock probably setting in. If it hadn't been for the tiny tongue lapping weakly at the ticklish spot under her jaw, she may never have truly stirred, just lay there until the darkness claimed her for tempting eternal sleep. 

But instead, he licked her four times. Just four, quick and soft, and then Creampuff went still, her vision focusing just in time to see the loving sparkle fade from his eyes forever. And then her own vision blurred with sudden hot tears. 

She doesn't think she's seen clearly since. 

Life without Creampuff is unthinkable. She would rather lose a limb than lose him. But the universe doesn't care. The universe doesn’t give her a choice.

It was quick, Cyan tries to remind her bitterness and sorrow. He didn't seem to be in pain. He didn't suffer. He died mere inches from her heart, right where he deserved to be. Where he belonged.

She'd _wailed._ She can only imagine now that her voice, already hoarse and raw, must have been a terrifying thing to hear. Like shriek of a Misdreavus- the heralding call of death.

No one ever answered. 

If a dying trainer wails her grief in the wreckage where no one can hear, does the sound even matter? 

Cyan can’t even remember who the person she’d spoken to was, let alone what she’d said. 

She wonders how Rose will take the news of her death. She tries not to dwell on it- on all the broken promises she’s leaving behind. Saffiya’s wedding with Erique was due in a little over a year; she’d promised to be a bridesmaid. She’d told Rose they’d go to Kalos together someday. She hadn’t finished writing her thesis, and she’d finally messaged Pat just a few days ago about maybe looking it over for her when it was done. 

More sobs shake the broken-glass feeling inside of her ribcage. Cyan can’t feel her legs, or her fingers, or her nose and ears, but there’s still so much that hurts. She can’t tell where the physical pain ends and the emotional pain begins. Her heart feels like it’s been torn to shreds right alongside her entire abdominal cavity. _Kanto’s Titans, can’t this just **end?**_

She tips her head forwards to bury her face amidst Creampuff’s thick fluff. His scent still clings faintly through the blood and the rain, the familiar comfort soothing Cyan’s aching heart some. At least she won’t be separated from Creampuff for much longer. 

_Creampuff… I wish you’d gotten the chance to evolve. I’m sorry. I promised you that we had all the time in the world to let you figure it out… How was I supposed to know?_

By the light of fires and emergency lights, Cyan watches blood drip from her arm. It runs down, down, down, in a way that makes her dizzy, until it mixes with Creampuff’s own blood. Strange how she can’t tell where one begins and the other ends… or maybe not so strange, seeing as sometimes it did feel like she and Creampuff were more one entity than two. She remembers how they learned and grew together, day after month after year, until she could cast a half-glance or he could twitch an ear and the other would know exactly what they were considering, even in the heat and chaos of a battle. 

She breathes in. Shuddering. Out. Painful.

It’s so cold. 

The pain is beginning to fade.

She glances over at Creampuff’s face one last time. Her eyelids droop and her head slumps forwards until they rest cheek-to-cheek, the last of her tears freezing between them. 

And Cyan waits.

_I miss you, Creampuff. I’ll see you again soon, I promise._

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed suffering with me


End file.
